In some NDEs, the person describes a quiet peaceful period following death where everything is extremely clear.  The person often describes seeing "much better" than they did while alive, hearing with a broadened ability; all sensations seem improved along with a profound state of calm and joy.  This is often the state in which people in operating or emergency rooms hear conversations next door, or while they are clinically dead, watching their bodies - they often report exact conversations or see things they simply couldn't have seen while dead.......This state is very much like what is described in the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) as the initial state of clarity where, if properly recognized can lead a person to nirvana.  If not recognized, often the person is plagued with illusions which are desire based, and lead him/her back to rebirth - in the Tibetan system of thought.

Traveling out of body and phasing are sometimes described as being clear experiences like the above NDEs, and sometimes they are not.  Monroe was tested by several people to visit them while OOB, and while he had several "hits," (verifications), there were many misses as well.  This begs the question "why did he miss?"  Monroe described one of the confounding issues and possibly an answer to the question, as being due to  which locale he would go to OOB.  Locale I, was much like real time earth and he could view people there.

Local II was an astral level of mind, which included Hells, and early heavens.  As Blackmore describes it in her biography of RAM:

"Locale 2 is supposed to be a world of thought, and quite separate from the physical, but it has many of the features of the physical. Entities living there, who were once in the physical world, recreate some of their familiar environment, or create for themselves things they liked before. In addition, Monroe speculates, higher entities may create a more familiar environment for the benefit of 'new-comers' arriving after death. He describes some areas as 'closer' to the physical and unpleasant to pass through, while the 'further' places are better. In traditional occult lore these would be referred to as the lower and higher astral planes. By long experimentation Monroe learned how to navigate them, and on the way he fought hostile creatures, willingly and unwillingly indulged in sexual adventures, and was guided by the 'Helpers'. It is to this Locale that Monroe believes all people may go sometimes during sleep."

So if Monroe tried to test out his OOBE while trying to visit OOB with a friend or colleague   and tried to visit someone while out of body, and then the reports didn't match up as to what the person was doing in the physical world, the answer could be that he was in Locale II, but not I.  However, Monroe left his body on thousands of explorations.  So it is unclear why the verifications in Locale One weren't more predictable or reproducible.

We also see this with other techniques such as phasing, and remote viewing.  There are hits and misses.  In remote viewing, one explanation is that when an object is viewed, it is being viewed independent of time.  Thus, if things are seen at the location, that are not truly there, they may have been present a century before or after the time period of the remote viewer.  At least that is one explanation put forward.  Another explanation is that the remote viewer misinterprets the symbolic representation from the information that is coming in.  Thus a curved structure meant to represent a bridge is seen instead as a mountain, etc.

So the question is, when is there crystal clarity and when are our visions pure fantasy?  Much exploration is done in the hypnagogic state between sleep and wakefulness.  This is a very shady/tricky area to begin with. 

Monroe could induce OOBE almost at will, and probably did so many thousands of times. Cayce could do this as well.  Robert Bruce must have had thousands of such journeys.  Yet what percent of these journeys were contact with other minds and places, and what portion were lucid dreams or fantasies?  If we can learn to access places like Focus 27 in a reproducible fashion, the coroborating data about deceased loved ones and future post mortem existence would be mind blowing. 

What accounts for the episodes of crystal clear journeys with verifications experienced by some, and then, in similar settings the  fantasies and bizarre information brought back by other voyages? Is it just "the interpretor" phenomenon?   Is it the M band interference Bruce writes of, that muddles our interpretation of things?  And why are our most experienced explorers prone to as many "misses" as "hits?"

Matthew

Yes, someone sent me a copy of an old article today, from 2003. A 'remembered' news article, fresh as the first time I read it. It was about the painting at the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, and how the smile on the Mona Lisa is so mysterious. It was explained that if you look straight at the painting you cannot see Mona's smile. It is only when you look at the painting with your peripheral vision that you see the smile, you must see it from an angle for it to 'exist'. So, when describing any reality, one must also consider, what reality are we talking about?

Contemporary explorers of the non-physical don't seem to be doing the preparation for each 'trip' that may be necessary for more acurate clarity. How can we compare the current results , when current explorers are people very involved with families and their businesses? Traditional knowledge that has come to us through the ages was mostly done by monks and philosophers who made their quest the focal point of their lives.

Perhaps the hits were results of times when, almost accidentally, immediate diet was condusive to clarity, when intent had been definitively set by a cleared mind, and when emotional involvements were fully focussed on the goal. Physical, mental, emotional at the minimum.
-- Spiritual intent is also needed but most of us are still so caught up in quagmires of misbeliefs that it's hard to establish that one. Except for Bruce's PUL.  I don't see much PUL-type prep being mentionned in Monroe and RBruce.   

How could successful business leaders, commandeering almost empires of responsibilities, make such preparation for their thousands of attempts?
I suspect Edgar Cayce came closest and he also seemed to get the most consistent contact. And he seems to have had little interest in other business.

I believe that every experience is as valid as the next, be it a real time projection, or a journey to the astral planes via phasing, astral projection, OR lucid dream (I strongly feel there is little difference between these types of experiences based on personal experience and the findings of other explorers- and I'm not thrilled how you grouped "lucid dreams" with "fantasy").

I don't believe verifying physical activities while OOB proves an experience to be valid.  Rather, it proves the experience to be of the Real Time Zone, where the physical can be accurately witnessed(if one has clear perception).  If the experience was had in the Astral levels, any variation of the physical activity could have been witnessed and likewise affected by one's own subconscious.  This is simply the nature of those particular realms.  But the Physical, the Astral, and the intermediate Real Time Zone levels are all equally valid systems in our universe and produce real experiences, regardless of their possible subjective nature. 

It has been found by many top explorers that all energy contained in the physical universe cycles through the Astral, and so I believe it is very possible to have a "real" interaction with a "real" mind in the Astral, even if that same mind is involved with totally different activities in the physical. 

So I suppose this may answer your question.  The question now is, how do we distinguish between these levels and control which ones we go to.  I suppose the answer is, experience experience experience.  I'm betting Robert Bruce is quite proficient at this, and I'm sure many others are as well.  I hope to achieve this level of control one day.

There is some truth for sure in that Matthew.

I agree Matthew.  This is usually the most significant challenge of the process. 

Which aspects of the experience can be taken literally and which aspects are symbolic representations?  I feel that for the most part, Astral events are a mixture of both.  But then again, I suppose that can be said for physical experience as well.  The events I experience while OOB appear to be just as real (usually even more so) then while in body.  But it also feels like there is a deeper meaning to it all.   

Everyone has their own unique symbols and beliefs, and it is up to the individual to ascribe a meaning to the experience- but how do we know that we are accurately doing so?  I believe that if it feels right to that individual and they are being true to themselves, using intuition and inner knowledge, then they will most likely accurately ascribe meaning to the experience.  However, if they compare their own experience against another's experience and interpretations, they will likely fall short of truth.

I, too, think it's too simple to draw a line between "real" and "fantasy/illusion". There are just problems with interpreting an experience. I think a nice explanation to work with is that we most of the time are broad-band focused, and that way it can happen that what we perceive is a mix of our personal realm, the real-time-zone, and the astral (for example), and when we can't discern between them and falsely attribute our perceptions to only one limited focus-band, such as the real-time-zone, then it happens that, despite a clear and vivid perception, it doesnt fit together with the physical data.

Spooky